29th September 2026
Virgin Media is putting a new cost on keeping some long-established email addresses. But is this the start of a wider change?.
For many people, an email address is something they have simply had for years. It may be printed on old paperwork, known by friends and relatives and connected to banks, insurance companies, shopping accounts, government services and dozens of other websites.
So when an internet provider starts charging for an email service that was once included with broadband, it is more than a minor change.
Virgin Media has now announced that it is transferring its existing email service to Junara, a specialist email provider. The change affects existing addresses including ntlworld.com, blueyonder.co.uk, virgin.net and virginmedia.com.
Virgin Media stopped creating new email addresses several years ago. It says the majority of people now use dedicated email providers rather than an email service supplied by their broadband company.
For existing Virgin Media customers who want to keep their address, the first 12 months with Junara will be free apart from a 99p transfer fee. After that, customers will have to consider Junara's standard charges if they want to continue with the service.
There is another important point. People who no longer have Virgin Media broadband, landline or TV services will have to sign up to a Junara plan if they want to retain their existing Virgin email address.
Virgin Media is also giving customers another option. They can download their emails and other data and move to another provider, including one offering free email.
That raises the bigger question: is free email itself disappearing?
For the moment, the answer is no.
Gmail continues to offer personal accounts with up to 15GB of storage at no charge, although that storage is shared between Gmail, Google Drive and Google Photos.
Microsoft's Outlook.com also continues to offer 15GB of free email storage.
So there is still plenty of free email available.
What may be disappearing is something slightly different: the assumption that your broadband company will provide an email address for you as part of the package.
And Virgin Media isn't the only company to move away from that old model. Plusnet has also been moving customers away from its free email service. The direction of travel is therefore worth watching, even though it would be premature to say that other providers will definitely start charging.
Why broadband companies are moving away
There is a fairly straightforward business reason.
Running an email service is not simply a matter of providing a few electronic mailboxes. It involves storage, security, spam filtering, protection against hacking, technical support and dealing with increasingly sophisticated attempts at fraud.
Virgin Media says that by transferring the email service to a specialist provider it can concentrate on its main broadband, mobile, landline and television services.
For customers, however, there is a lesson here.
Your email address may not be as permanent as you think.
Someone who has used an ntlworld or blueyonder address for 15 or 20 years may regard it almost like a telephone number. But it is ultimately a service provided by a company, and that company can change how it operates.
What should Virgin Media customers do?
The first piece of advice is simple: don't panic and don't click on an unexpected email link.
Virgin Media says it will not put clickable sign-up links into its notification emails about the change. Customers will instead be directed to official Virgin Media information. This is particularly important because scammers could easily use the email migration as an excuse to send convincing-looking phishing messages.
If you receive a message about the change, go directly to the Virgin Media website rather than following a link in the email.
If you want to keep your existing address, follow the official instructions for transferring it.
If you decide to move to another provider, don't simply open a new account and forget about the old one.
First make a list of important organisations that use your existing email address. Banks, insurance companies, pension providers, HMRC, shopping websites, utilities and subscription services are obvious examples.
Change them gradually to your new address.
It is also worth telling family and friends that you are changing your email address.
And don't close the old account until you are confident that nothing important is still going to it.
Could this be the opportunity to become independent of your broadband provider?
There is a good argument for doing exactly that.
If your email address is provided by your broadband company, changing broadband provider can potentially create another headache.
An independent Gmail or Outlook address is not tied to your broadband contract.
That doesn't necessarily mean everyone should immediately abandon their existing email address. If you have used it for years and it continues to work, there may be no reason to change it today.
But if you are already having to change because your provider is ending or charging for its email service, it may be worth choosing an address that you can take with you regardless of which broadband company you use in the future.
Don't forget security
Whatever email service you use, remember that your inbox is effectively the gateway to much of your digital life.
Password-reset messages for other accounts normally arrive by email. That means someone who gains access to your email could potentially use it to attack other accounts.
Use a strong, unique password and turn on two-factor authentication where it is available. Virgin Media itself recommends both measures as basic email security precautions.
It is also worth keeping an independent recovery email address or another recovery method attached to important accounts.
So is this the end of free email?
Probably not.
But it may be the end of an era in which free email from your broadband provider was simply taken for granted.
The bigger technology companies still have strong reasons to provide free email because it keeps people inside their wider ecosystems. Gmail is linked to Google's services, while Outlook is part of Microsoft's wider account system.
They can therefore make money in other ways.
For consumers, the important lesson from Virgin Media is perhaps not that we are about to start paying for every email we send.
It is that digital services which once appeared permanent can change surprisingly quickly.
Your email address may be free today. The important thing is to make sure that, if the terms ever change, you have a way of moving without losing access to the digital accounts and contacts that have built up around it.
In the digital world, perhaps the safest email address is not necessarily the one that is free.
It is the one you can take with you.